So today I received the word that Google Notebook was available for testing. Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion does not think its as big a hit as Google Trends and TechCruch is not impressed either. Google Trends has more of an “isn’t that cool” factor, but I can see using Google Notebook a lot more on a daily basis. The official announcement is here on the Google Blog.

Having one centralized place where I can quickly add clippings and categorize them is a huge timesaver. I often see interesting things at work I might want to check out and I end up just sending them to myself in Gmail and then having to search later for them with tags I’ve made. Being able to actually have one place to quickly add snippets of information which automatically links to the page and can include images, bullet points, and other structured aspects of a web page is something I’ve been wanting but have never had an easy way to do. I experimented with solutions such as Onfolio but the problem I’ve always had is that I want a place where I an access my research without having it tied to just one computer.

Like many people these days, I work on different computers at work, on a laptop when travelling, on my home development machine, and on the machines of friends and family at odd times. I’ve used email for the function of having one storage space to keep notes and information I want to keep, but its not really the best way. I’ve experimented with Basecamp from 37 Signals and while I like the simplicity of it, it hasn’t really stuck with me.

I think Google has it right in that these days the computer is the network and the future of the world is one of interconnected data streams and readily accessible data, from anywhere in the world, at any time. I view all of these applications as the first real salvo towards establishing that reality, in the same way that the personal computer was a shift way from the big mainframes.

Some cool uses I see for Google Notebook:

• Code Snippets: Now, I’m not a programming genius, but I do enjoy the programming I do and have times I want to refer to example code from websites and friends. I often will point to tutorial pages or email myself a link to code references on the Ruby on Rails mailing list on GMANE, but this seems like a much better place to store these. In addition, being able to share them means my friends who are actually coding geniuses could post example code and share it.
• Medical & Health Research: Most of the time when doing this sort of research you don’t want the whole page just bits of text on drug interactions, recommendations, etc.
• Job Information: Job seekers looking at a range of sites can quickly put all of that information directly into a bunch of notes and then look through the best and apply later.

Some Possible Improvements:

• Layout Control: I do like the Googly colors and design, but I can imagine it getting tiring after a while. Give me colors and style or choice or give me death! Well not really, but layout choices would be nice. Different template/layouts, color schemes, font sizes, headers, etc…
• More Category Control: I like how you can take a note or category and throw it in a new notebook. But how about being able to take a category and being able to add a sub category to it? I’d like to be able to have a super delicious recipe category and have some sub-categories such as “fattening,” “highly fattening,” and “can’t believe it but its actually healthy.”
• More Structure for the Notes: Its good that it is simple, but I can see a need to be able to add a bit more structure to the notes, such as a title or an excerpt. For a complicated code example I might want to just make the heading like “Ruby Authentication Hash Plugin” with a quick excerpt description for what it does. Then if I want to look at the code I could click and see the example. Not looking for Google Base, but I’d like a bit more options.
• RSS Feeds: Why not let people have an RSS feed for the notebooks they want to share? A lot of the functionality of blogs is information gathering and this might give the chance for an expert to share their research. Scientists could include snippets of text, reference information they are discovering, and so forth.

Of course, like many of the Google products, I imagine it will start out as beta and then gradually add more of these types of features as it goes on. Sometimes it is better to start with something simple that can do what it needs to do and then add more features later as the need arises. It seems to be Google’s strength and I have strong hope for the future of this product.

Michael @ SEOG